One Last Time
by The Steppy One
Summary: Sequel to 'One Last Chance', the story written by Solstice Muse and myself.


**A/N 1: **So, you know that Solstice Muse and me wrote **'One Last Chance'** (which is over on her profile, should you wish to read, if you already haven't) and then I wrote this little 'sequel' to it, which is just a one shot. Below is my original Author's Note from when I published the fic in March 2007 over on Live Journal. (The 'Time Stamp' thing I talk about is a meme over on LJ where people give you a time frame from one of your fics and you write something in response.) I'll shush now… lol

**A/N 2: **So, **amieam** asked **oncelikeshari** over on **solstice_fics** for a look at how Ron and Hermione were getting on in with Ron's PTS in One Last Chance for the time stamp thing Shari's doing, and being the nice and sharing person she is, Shari prodded me and handed me the prompt! Have to say I was a bit wibbly bout it, but Shari seems to think it's okay :D So, here goes...

**Rating:** G  
**Warnings:** Mild angst. Not betad  
**Summary:** Hmm, I kinda already did that up there!  
**A/N:** Well, _I_ did it, so it's Hermione's POV, and first person.

…

**One Last Chance**

I'm not sure of the exact number of days it had been that Ron had started taking his potion to counter the effects of his Post Traumatic Stress.

I think he had been expecting me to tell him to 'give it a miss today' since I found out about it. I didn't though and things were okay. He was slowly getting better but there were the odd days when I'd wake up in the morning and he'd not be in bed next to me.

We'd moved into a small flat together a year after his 'death' and things were okay. I decided to get a job at the Ministry that I could leave there. Yes, eventually my career would become one of my main focuses but for now I had one and one only.

Ronald Bilius Weasley.

I arrived home at my usual time, just after half past five, and found him in the kitchen, standing in front of the sink and staring out into the overgrown garden that we both purposely leave to grow untidy.

'Ron?' I asked quietly as I walked over to him.

He looked over his shoulder and smiled at me. I smiled back at him and put my arm around his waist.

He had stopped trying to hide his pain and suffering behind one of his many smiles, it was an agreement we had come to. I told him I would never ask him to come off his potion before he felt he was ready and he promised me that he would always be honest about the way he was feeling. Neither of us had asked the other to promise those things but we did regardless, it was what we both thought was best for us to move on.

I think it had helped.

'I er…I've been thinking.'

I looked up at him as he stared at the tree at the bottom of the garden. It had taken me hours to find him after work one evening, a few months after we moved in here. When I eventually did find him high up in the tree, I joined him up there and we had just sat there, staring at the garden, the house, and the stars when the light had faded. It was beautiful.

'What about?' I replied.

'A lot of things,' he said simply. 'But one in particular.'

I took my arm from around his waist and lifted myself onto the draining board so I could look at him properly.

'Do you know how long we were looking for the Horcruxes for?'

'Er…nearly two and a half years, wasn't it?'

'Nearly. It was two years, five months, and seventeen days.'

'What, no hours?' I asked, teasing him.

He chuckled.

'Nah, I thought that would make me look obsessive.'

I smiled at him and he took my left hand in his. I wove my fingers in between his and held on to him tightly.

'Do you know how long I've been on this stuff?'

He nodded down to the sink and I looked into it.

His week's supply of potion was in the sink. The seven bottles neatly lined up in a row.

He looked at me and I shook my head.

'Not exactly, no.'

'Two years, five months and sixteen days. I've been taking this stuff for the same amount of time it took us to destroy him. We hunted down four Horcruxes, destroyed them all, and then took on snake head and killed him. In the same amount of time I still haven't managed to get over my…_thing._ It's pitiful really.'

I punched him on the shoulder and tightly squeezed his hand.

'Don't do that!' I said with a half-hearted glare.

'It's true though, isn't it? We did all that crap on our own and then Harry finished him off! It was brilliant, _we_ were brilliant. Harry is _still_ brilliant, you can't help being brilliant and I'm just…not!'

I punched him again. He didn't even flinch.

'I'd decided that today was going to be the day. I wasn't going to let this become longer than that did. But…but when I got here, I couldn't do it. I've been stood here for twenty minutes and all I've managed to achieve is line them up with an exact equal distance between each one.'

'Really?' I asked, leaning over the sink and seeing that they were indeed, spaced equally. 'That's impressive!'

'Thanks!'

There was a reason why I was ignoring his earlier statement. I'd learned to suppress all my natural questioning instincts. When Ron was ready to talk about something, he would. He'd promised me that, so I did my bit by not pressing him. I'll admit, sometimes it nearly killed me, but I did it.

A minute passed. Ron went back to staring outside and I stroked his hand with my thumb.

'Tell me to do it,' he said, catching me totally off guard.

'What?' I whispered.

'Tell me to pour each and every one of them down the sink.'

I swallowed hard. 'You know I won't do that, Ron. I promised you.'

He turned to look at me, his eyes blazing with determination.

'Please, just tell me to do it and I will. If you tell me to pour the vile stuff down the sink I'll be free of it, I know I will.'

I hopped down off the draining board and walked around the table away from Ron.

Part of me wanted to scream and tell him to pour the stuff down the sink, but there was the main part of me that needed him to do this on his own. He needed to prove to himself that he was strong. I knew it, Arthur knew it, everyone who cared about him knew it.

Everyone except Ronald Bilius Weasley.

'When you woke up this morning, did you need to take your potion?' I asked him.

He turned to face me and shook his head.

'When you woke up yesterday did you need to take your potion?'

This time he nodded his head.

'And did you?'

Again he shook his head.

If you wake up tomorrow and feel the need to take your potion, will you?'

'If I have none to take then I can't, can I?'

'I suppose not.'

He turned and my eyes widened as he pulled the cork out of the top of one bottle and tipped it down the sink. Another one followed, then another and another. Six bottles of potion disappeared down the plughole.

Then he picked up the seventh. He hesitated, then put it down on the draining board. His shoulders slumped and he turned and ran out of the kitchen. I watched through the window as he ran to his tree and climbed up it until he was hidden.

I couldn't decide whether to follow or not him. After twenty seconds of umming and ahhing my feet made my decision for me. I walked out into the garden and climbed the tree after him.

As I was balanced precariously on the branch in front of him I looked at him but he wouldn't lift his head to me.

'Budge over,' I said, 'before this very thin branch buckles underneath me.'

He shuffled to his right and I squeezed between him and the tree trunk.

'Tell me if you want me to go,' I said quietly.

I understood that sometimes me being next to him didn't help matters.

'I can't do this anymore Hermione, I just cant!'

Before I had time to react, he had pulled his wand from his pocket and waved it at the house, after a few seconds the bottle of potion flew into his hand and then another swoosh told me his broom wasn't far behind. He took his broom in his left hand and stood on one of the footrests without mounting it properly. It sank a few inches under his weight.

'Ron!' I screeched, scared his broom was going to give out on him.

He threw his leg over the broom flew and out from under the canopy of the tree. When he was clear he shot straight up in the air.

'Shit! No! _Ron!_' I screeched after him.

I performed a cushioning charm on the ground beneath the tree and despite the protests of my natural instincts, dropped from the branch.

I landed and wrenched my head back to find Ron in the sky.

He was hovering and shifting his weight on the broom so he didn't have to hold it.

He looked down at me.

'This is it Hermione, I won't let it become two years, five months and seventeen days.'

'Ron you don't—'

I gasped as he threw the bottle high into the air. As it started to fall back down to earth he raised his wand and a jet of orange light shot out from it. It soared towards the bottle and hit it.

The bottle exploded in a shower of light.

Ron seamed to sag on his broom and I thought for a second he was going to fall, but he slumped forwards and gripped the broom handle. A few seconds later and he was back on the ground standing in front of me.

I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around him. Tears filled my eyes as he let go of his broom and held onto me as if his life depended on it.

'You er…you don't mind taking the day off work tomorrow, do you?' he asked quietly. 'I er…I might not be able to let go!'

I chuckled despite my tears.

'That's fine by me!' I whispered. 'But can we go inside first?'


End file.
